Get It On

How the '70s Rocked Football

Get It On
Jon Spurling
RRP:
NZ$ 49.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 41.24
Hardback
Not defined - 416pg
3 Mar 2022 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9781785906510
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
English football in the ' 70s was a kaleidoscope of drama, innovation, opportunity, controversy, tragedy, melodrama and slapstick. It remains the most cutting edge of all football decades, blazing a trail for what followed, and this is reflected in the burgeoning TV coverage of the time. Match of the Day and The Big Match drew huge audiences each week during the ' 70s. Leading managers and players were in demand to appear as guests on TV chat shows and were the subject of documentaries that gave viewers unprecedented insight into the lives of the superstars of the day, such as Clough, Best, Revie, Shankly, Allison, Docherty and Paisley. It was the first ' modern' football decade, despite often being lampooned and scoffed at, and it set in place much of what is now part and parcel of the game, including sponsorship, TV punditry and football ' personalities' . Get It On is a book about 1970s football and some of its prime movers and shakers, cult figures and accidental heroes. Some were inadvertently sucked into a maelstrom of publicity. Others were charismatic, media-savvy, sideburn-clad, cigar-smoking, Champagne-swilling, upwardly mobile chat show guests who became household names as the era of colour television began. As well as being about the game itself, this book is also about the politics, the popular culture and the events of the era. These different strands are interconnected, because, as much as football was shaped by that which swirled around it, the national game in the ' 70s also defined the timbre of the era. There is a danger, as the pre-1992 era recedes into history, that the game in the ' 70s is reduced to a varnished selection of YouTube clips, a clutch of tales and bon mots handed down via the after dinner speaking circuit or, worse, written out entirely. Get It On goes some way to redressing the balance. ' You always know you' re going to get a fascinating read from Spurling. But this is his most vivid book yet - sheer joy! For us old geezers, it' s like being miraculously transported back to the 1970s. And, for younger readers, I can promise you quite an education. ' - Patrick Barclay
"You always know you' re going to get a fascinating read from Spurling, but this is his most vivid book yet - sheer joy! For us old geezers it' s like being miraculously transported back to the 1970s. And for younger readers I can promise you quite an education. " Patrick Barclay"A fascinating, funny and poignant stroll down memory lane of an era that shaped the modern game. The ' 70s was the decade when English football went pop. It exploded. Football went from black and white to colour. Players became personalities. Football went from short back and sides to sideburns and mullets. It began with England' s squad singing ' Back Home' , which sold 100,000 copies a day, as they headed to the World Cup and sadly continued with England staying back home when they didn' t qualify for the ' 74 and ' 78 World Cups. Even then, the show went on, changing football for ever. " Henry Winter "Jon Spurling' s brilliant, non-judgemental, superbly researched and anecdote-laden book is a wonderful telling of when football and all those involved in it were dragged out of the footballing dark ages of the 1960s and into the money-fuelled and fame-filled combination of excess and success that it has become today. " - Guillem Balague "Get It On is the superbly told story of the decade when football became flash. It has a cast to die for - from Big Mal to Old Big ' Ead, through Bestie, Bowles and the Doc. You can smell the Brut and taste the Watneys Party Seven. A brilliant history of footballers you thought you knew but didn' t. " - Tim Rich, author of The Quality of Madness: A Life of Marcelo Bielsa "A wonderfully evocative portrait of an incredible decade for English football. It pulls together cultural history seamlessly and brings to life the major characters from the era. " - Michael Cox, The Athletic "The big teams, events and personalities, and intriguing new angles on familiar tales. . . Many of the key figures are no longer with us, but the indefatigable Spurling tracked down many of them and recorded their memories before they left. " - David Winner, author of Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football "Cracking tales from the terraces amid betrayal in the boardrooms. " - Tim Marshall, author of "Dirty Northern B*st*rds!" and Other Tales from the Terraces: The Story of Britain' s Football Chants "Bringing football history to vibrant life is Jon Spurling' s gift - and it is also a gift to the reader. He transports us back to a time when the mavericks and marvels challenged convention during the 1970s. It was a fascinating period of old meeting new in the game' s evolution and Spurling' s storytelling, insights and eye for character and social context shine through. " - Amy Lawrence
A history and politics teacher by day, Jon Spurling has written articles and interviewed footballers for numerous publications at home and abroad, including FourFourTwo, When Saturday Comes, The Blizzard, Nutmeg, 11 Freunde and the official Arsenal programme. He has authored six previous books, including the bestselling Highbury: The Story of Arsenal in N. 5 and Death or Glory - The Dark History of the World Cup. A child of the ' 70s, he is currently writing an ' 80s follow-up to Get It On and lives in Canterbury with his wife and two daughters.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781785906510
Published: 3 Mar 2022
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Biteback Publishing
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Format: Hardback
Pages: 416

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